


rooting for my baby

by lovages



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1584248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovages/pseuds/lovages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A take on the infamous 9.06 coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rooting for my baby

Musty carpeted floors. Dean grimaces as he moves further into the motel room. Could be worse, much worse. When he drops his duffel at the foot of the bed closest to the door he turns to find Cas still at the threshold.

Human though he is, he still stands rock still. His movements are still so precise, so utilitarian. Secret, traitorous, disquiet voices within Dean wish for Cas to learn, or at least affect mannerisms. He wishes cas would just run a hand through that mess that passes for hair. Or worry the wrinkled wound of his mouth with his teeth, or even just shift his gaze to trace the walls.

“Well?” Dean spreads his hands open, palms facing upward. _What are you waiting for, Cas?_

Cas just looks back at him. He’s angry and Dean feels a little funny about that. Sort of torn between amused and apologetic. He can tell because it’s such a cold anger. Dean’s seen the angel’s eyes burn with irritation, with purposeful rage, with the wrath of god, capital w, capital g. That had been a controlled, coruscating, beautiful sight. That had been a warrior’s exultation. This was private. This was personal. And it’s not just anger, it’s hurt, too. It’s a deeply human, personal sort of hurt. It’s coming off Cas in waves, the questions he wants to know the answers to: _why didn’t you want me then? Why do you want me here now?_

Dean sighs. “Shut the door behind you, come on.”

“Dean,” Cas starts, tone warring between wary and warning, and Dean can see the confidence from this morning is gone.

Not for the first time, Dean feels terrible. Cas tried to find a sense of purpose for himself. And instead of letting him be, Dean went and dragged him through a hunt to rub his face in the misguided desolation of the rest of his kind.

Worse, tricked or not, Cas no doubt already felt responsible. But Cas had always broken too vastly. These attempts at making amends were too small. Playing sorry, restocking shelves. He’s trying to hold onto that. And he’s losing. He’s lost.

“Just let me fix your hand, okay?” Dean reaches for the remote and Cas’ gaze flickers to it, then the small, ancient TV. Score. Dean bites back a smile as Cas steps in and backs the door shut.

It almost works too well. In fact, Cas is so absorbed in what he’s watching (infomercials again) that he doesn’t flinch or even respond when Dean cleans the cuts. Dean checks for swelling or stiffness along the ugly, purpling bruise that tattoos Cas’ wrist, but it’s just a bad sprain.

This close, Dean can smell the sweat on him, the gritty, day-end, near-death adrenaline sourness. Every inhale and exhale is a soft, distinct whisper of sound. It reminds Dean of the rustle of wings that announce Cas’ arrival, but also, and more often, always his departures. The more he left, the more Dean felt bereft. But Cas is not going anywhere now, Dean thinks to himself. Cas is just sweating and breathing and Dean wants, with a startling fierceness, just to sweat and breathe in the quiet with him.

If they’d been back home at the bunker, Cas could’ve changed into one of the monogrammed Men of Letters pajamas. Dean could’ve offered him a beer. They could’ve watched something on the flatscreen in Sam’s room, maybe even Game of Thrones again. Dean could’ve teased Cas for not being there when that had been written, because he’d been too busy saving the world. Funny how living in the shadow of a looming apocalypse is now what Dean calls back to as good times. They’d definitely been simpler times.

Maybe because he’s already touching Cas’ hands and fantasizing like such a girl, Dean has to clamp down the unreasonable, shuddering urge to press a palm to Cas’ sternum. He wants to turn the reassuring rise and fall of Cas’ inhales and exhales, punctuated by the drum of his heart, into a sense memory. This reality, Cas being human, is straight out of fantasies Dean never even allowed himself to have. Though he’s trying to be clinical about it, it’s an intimate moment and he cares for Cas. He’s helping heal him now. And sure, it’s nowhere as quick as their favored brand of angel mojo. And it’s not shelter, but it’s help all the same.

By the time Dean finishes, a not-quite smile tugs the corners of the (former, Dean reminds himself) angel’s lips upwards. His bandaged arm lies forgotten in his lap. He slowly flicks through channels, always coming back to the damn infomercials.

Dean allows himself a fond smile at Cas’ back and settles down against the headboard to watch. Who would’ve thought, angels obsessed with freaking garden hose for crying out loud. On screen, a forgettable, pretty woman announces an irresistible offer and god, why are they watching this? As though he’d read Dean’s mind, Cas switches to something about home makeovers.

“So really, enlighten me. Why infomercials?”

Cas doesn’t turn at the sound of his voice, but his shoulders loosen and sag. “The things humans - people - create are so ingenious.”

Well, then. Not much Dean can say to that. Some people find comfort in church. Some ex-angels find it in advertising reserved for the sleepless. He doesn’t want to be the guy to point out that it’s all useless junk that ends up forgotten mostly unused because it almost never works. Especially since he’s already the guy who kicked his best friend out in said friend’s ultimate time of need. The best friend who saved his ass too many times to count. So instead, Dean ventures further into uncomfortable territory.

“Listen, Cas, you can still take my help with you know, money. And things. You keep a couple credit cards on you. For emergencies and whatnot. Charlie set us up, so it’s gotten a lot easier. So just - get a room here or something. Sleep on a goddamn bed. I don’t get _why_ you want to, but whatever, you’d be able to work better.”

A big aching part of Dean wants to say something reassuring. It’s the part that wants them to breakfast together at the bunker. The part that wants to see Cas swagger into a hunt, in all his human mortality, with the confidence that Dean has his back. Something like, I know. It gets worse before it gets better. But the truth is, Cas doesn’t need his empty reassurances. Doesn’t need the bullshit credit cards. Dean’s been on the road long, but there can’t be anything he knows that Cas hasn’t already seen or heard.

But this time Cas looks over his shoulder at Dean, blue eyes filled with a painful earnestness. He says, “Dedication to any sort of occupation is the sincerest form of prayer, Dean.”

To whom? _God?_ The question is probably plastered on Dean’s face even though he shows great restraint by not asking in outright derision.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cas sighs, shoulders sloping further and he looks so tired.

“Hey, okay,” Dean fumbles for gentle and lands on gruff, “Maybe you should get some shut eye.”

“I am exhausted,” Cas admits.

“The many nuisances of being human, buddy,” Dean says with a wry smile.

Cas stands up, turns the TV off and circles around his bed to settle down with his head on the pillows. He lies flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, injured hand cradled against his chest. The minutes draw out long and if Dean stares, it’s inconsequential because Cas is somewhere inside that big brain of his, lost. It’s a long time, long enough for Dean’s mind to have quieted into the meditative moments of not-thought on the brink of sleep, when Cas shifts a little and speaks.

“It used to baffle me. The way humans would just choose to fall away from the world for a few hours. But now I know. The body tires and so the mind tires. Living is a process that must be renewed, and for it to begin anew, it must end. It’s like. It’s a little death.”

“Oh, Cas.” Dean feels the smirk take over his face and gives up without a fight. His voice has rumbled un-self consciously closer to sleep and the space between them feels dreamlike. “That’s not what we mean by little death.”

The expression that colors Cas’ face is probably a smile, because it sharpens the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, but the muted glow of the bedside lamp kissing the geometry of his profile into an exquisite silhouette distracts Dean. Cas might be human now, but he still feels like an angel and he sighs like a man, but he still sounds like a seraph. “I know.”


End file.
